AWS Simplifies Global Network Operation with AWS Cloud WAN

A majority of enterprises are running their networks across multiple environments today, forcing them to build and manage global networks, while also leveraging networking, security and internet services from multiple third-party providers.  Managing all these various services can be a time-consuming and costly process.

Networking teams are also facing challenges configuring, securing and managing an expanding mix of technologies required to build, scale and operate a secure global network for their organizations.

To simplify network operations, Amazon Web Services announced the availability of AWS Cloud WAN, a new managed wide area network service that will connect on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, branch offices and cloud resources.

Customers can define their network configuration, view the health of their global network and automate routine configuration and security tasks. Networking teams, using the central management dashboard, can more easily apply a policy that requires network traffic from branch offices to be routed through a specific network firewall before reaching cloud resources running in an AWS Region.

“Many wide area networks used by enterprises today consist of a patchwork of connections between branch offices and data centers that were optimized for applications that run on-premises,” said David Brown (News - Alert), vice president of Amazon EC2 at AWS. “As the edge of the cloud continues to be pushed outward, they need an easier way to evolve their networks to support a modern, distributed model that allows them to reach their customers and end users globally with high performance.”

AWS Cloud WAN also will integrate with various SD-WAN, network appliance and independent software vendors — including Aruba, Aviatrix, Checkpoint, Cisco Meraki, Cisco Systems (News - Alert), Prosimo and VMware — to allow customers to connect their on-premises SD-WAN devices to AWS.

“Cisco continues to invest in cloud networking by integrating the Cisco SD-WAN product portfolios with AWS Cloud WAN to securely connect multi-AWS Region workloads, increase application performance, and reduce deployment times,” said Chris Stori, senior vice president and general manager at Cisco Networking Experiences

AWS Cloud WAN will enable enterprises to build a single, unified network to improve the network health, performance and security of their organization.